Q+A With OptaSense Managing Director Magnus McEwen-King

OptaSense — a subsidiary of QinetiQ — is a U.K.-based firm that developed a technology called Distributed Acoustic Sensing, or DAS, that can turn any stretch of fiber-optic cable into a microphone or other remote sensor to either protect pipelines, oil and gas assets or increase the productivity of oil wells. The company was recently awarded a contract by Petroleum Development Oman to use the technology, a spinoff from submarine sonars, to monitor up to 12 steam-injected oil wells in the south of the country. Here, OptaSense Managing Director Magnus McEwen-King tells The Wall Street Journal about the benefits of DAS technology and when he expects to see take hold in the Middle East.

WSJ: How would you describe your company and what it does?

Mr. McEwen-King: OptaSense is an optical sensing company. The core of our technology is the ability to convert standard fiber optic cables into a distributed fiber sensor, our most successful product is DAS. There are a number of companies out there that are attempting to replicate what we have done but we are very much the market leader in the distributed fiber sensing field. We are now being followed by Halliburton and Schlumberger who are at the point of creating their first DAS measurement device for research evaluation. OptaSense has gone past the research stage and is now into full commercial deployment of services to customers like that of the recently announced PDO contract. The key to our service is to give customers the decision ready data they require in the format they require at the time they require to make decisions that improve yield, their safety record and improve their operational costs.

WSJ: What are the main benefits of using DAS technology in the oil industry?

Mr. McEwen-King: There are three main benefits our technology provides. First: We reduce the safety burden. Second: We are able to obtain the data without affecting the operation of the well and third: Our technology offers lower costs of field development.

WSJ: You just won a contract to deploy your technology to monitor and map the performance of up to 12 steam-injected oil wells in Oman. Where else in the region you can utilize your technology?

Mr. McEwen-King: There are two halves to my business. The first half looks at oil well monitoring and Petroleum Development Oman is a primary customer for that. The second half of my business is for pipeline security and monitoring and we have various contracts to protect strategic corridors of pipelines in Iraq and throughout the Middle East region. We are currently protecting around and monitoring over 1,000 kms of export pipelines in and around the Middle East region. Over the past couple of years our business in the region has been predominantly focused on the security of pipelines and oil and gas assets and what we are seeing now is that the reservoir monitoring capability that we have historically undertaken in North America is now coming to the Middle East. We have a number of other potential customers in the region for our services.

WSJ: So which countries and customers are you looking at in the region?

Mr. McEwen-King: We are looking into Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Yemen and North Africa. I would not really pin it down to any single country. The technology has applicability in all countries that want to use fiber optic for the security of assets and to monitor reservoir. We do, however, see significant impact of our technology within the enhanced oil recovery operations, in particular steam injection which would be applicable to Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain for instance.

WSJ: Have you had any talks with large Middle East oil producers to license your technology?

Mr. McEwen-King: We typically provide our services directly to the oil companies as is the case with PDO where our petroleum engineers and seismic crews are onsite to collect and analyze the data. Our parent company QinetiQ Group is very supportive of OptaSense which enables us to grow our own service delivery capability as needed to provide services to clients in the Middle East. We are not adverse to partnering with larger oil service companies on projects as the need arises but we have the depth of support from the wider QinetiQ Group to enable us to service international customers.

WSJ: When do you expect the technology to be picked up in the region?

Mr. McEwen-King: The contract we signed with Oman is the world’s first multi-well 4D DAS vertical seismic profiling service and so the market is just getting started for this application. We think this technology will take off in the next five years in the region. So to me, 2016-2017 is probably the time where I think we will see a very rapid adoption of the technology for DAS-VSP services. However our pipeline security capability is very much in demand right now within the Middle East with over 1,000km of pipeline under contract across the region.